The Push and Pull of Academe
Happy New Year, folks! I was only going to write my first blog of the year next Sunday, but I have been sitting here this weekend thinking I should write something because the semesters seem well underway in a lot of places. Yet I was not sure what to write about and still felt compelled to do so, and I realized that was the thing I should write about- that push and pull that is so innate in academic spaces. One thing I discovered coming back to my unmonitored inbox after the winter break was that there were way fewer "this needs to be responded to right now at this moment" emails than usual. I am a big fan of acknowledging that folk need to work at their own pace or in ways that feel meaningful to them. So that means that maybe the winter break is when folk do a lot of catching up, but we also need to be respectful of the fact that for many (like me) winter break is actually a break, and a really needed one. I always love emails that have that little disclaimer at the end th...